Following Clemson’s 20-16 home loss to Virginia Tech on Saturday night, Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney expanded on his harsh halftime assessment of the coaching staff and elaborated on his “we’re fixing to fix it” comments.

At halftime, with the Tigers trailing by seven points, Swinney was clearly frustrated and had bluntly called Clemson’s 94-yard, three-point output “100% coaching” and “pitiful.”

Swinney elaborated on those comments during his postgame press conference.

“I just didn’t think we did a good enough job as coaches offensively in the first half in helping them win,” Swinney said.

As for Swinney’s emphatic “we’re fixing to fix it” statement before heading into the locker room at halftime?

Swinney was asked what changes the coaching staff made in the locker room, coming back out in the second half.

“We kind of went away from some of the read stuff and went to some of the direct run stuff, and we got it going and we made some nice plays,” Swinney said. “Again, I think we just took a little bit off the quarterback and just had some direct runs and got in some good rhythm.”

Swinney took fault for a failed fourth-and-inches play in the first half, saying the Tigers should have run a quarterback sneak with true freshman Tait Reynolds.

Swinney said he should have called timeout but did not, and Reynolds missed the read. The result of the play was a Gideon Davidson rush up the middle that was stuffed for a 2-yard loss and turnover on downs midway through the first quarter.

“Yeah, I mean, I thought we should’ve sneaked the ball, and I didn’t like the call, and I should have called timeout,” Swinney said. “We put it on the quarterback to make a read. He misses the read, and he’s a young player, and I feel like that’s where we have to be better to help him. I could’ve stopped it and called timeout, and I didn’t do that, so it’s my fault.

“But there was a couple of those in the first half where I just feel like we could’ve helped him. And then we came out in the second half and we took some of those things away, and we took the reads away and we just had some direct runs, and it was very effective and he had some really nice plays.”

Clemson (4-3, 2-2 ACC) will try to get back in the win column when it travels to play Florida State next Saturday (7 p.m., ACC Network) at Doak Campbell Stadium in Tallahassee, Fla.